Bateman Mall Park neighbor Kathy Brady moves her dog away from the rotting grass on the mall while out for a stroll Monday afternoon. Neighbors have shoveled the newly constructed grass-paver installation to prevent water from clogging there. Photograph by Riya Bhattacharjee.

The Berkeley Chamber of Commerce Political Action Committee may have violated local election laws, according to Councilmember Dona Spring who says she is preparing a formal complaint against Business for Better Government Berkeley Chamber of Commerce PAC.
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A recently released report on young men of color by a national commission chaired by the incoming Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums may provide a roadmap to priorities and policies in the city for the next four years.
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Features

While the City Council passed an updated Creeks Ordinance in concept Nov 14, approval is back before the council tonight (Tuesday), so the body can vote on the formal ordinance, said City Councilmember Laurie Capitelli.
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A forum to discuss how Berkeley public schools can be more welcoming toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender families in the community will be held at the Berkeley Technology Academy today (Tuesday).
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A family feud over a brother’s death likely led to the Thanksgiving Day shooting in an Oakland apartment complex that killed two women and one man and injured two more, Oakland Police Department spokesman Roland Holmgren said.
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The Dijon mustard that was called for in the brussel sprouts recipe was in my garage. I couldn’t get to it because the cops posted outside my 53rd Street duplex had ordered me to “Stay inside, Lady.” Their drawn revolvers convinced me to obey. I did, for the next few hours on Thanksgiving Day, as a huge tragic drama unfolded across the street at the Keller Plaza apartments.
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Public Comment

During the next 15 years, southeast Berkeley will be radically transformed by the realization of the 2020 Long Range Development Plan (2020 LRDP), the Southeast Campus Integrated Projects (SCIP), the Underhill Parking Lot, and the proposed development at and near Bowles Hall. The long range plan and parking lot are already approved; SCIP approval which includes another parking lot is imminent, while the Bowles Hall expansion and reuse proposal is a cumulative impact and inevitable byproduct of all that precedes it.
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The November election results represented an important political breakthrough for the Green Party of California. Nationally, including California, the Green Party fielded 375 candidates for 66 different elected offices in 38 states. Prior to the November general election, the party held at least 223 local, municipal, county and state elected offices nationwide.
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Now we’re told (Daily Planet, Nov. 24) that the misleading Chamber PAC mailer violated state and local election laws by omitting the identity of the groups who got it out to Berkeley voters just days before the election. Three of the potential four perpetrators have weighed in with denials: the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce (we’re not the PAC); the Chamber PAC (we outsourced the work and didn’t proofread prior to mailing); and the printer/mailer company (we just print and mail the stuff we’re given). That leaves the company that supplied the content and artwork, Brand Guidance/Design Intelligence, and its chief hooter Mr. Steven Donaldson.
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Editorial

Not too long ago the Planet received a letter from a reader asserting that E.Y. Harburg, the author of “Happy Days are Here Again,” was once a Republican. The writer is a frequent and cordial correspondent, and we didn’t want him to embarrass himself in public, so instead of running the letter we wrote back respectfully and said that we were positive that Yip Harburg, whose son we had known, was never a Republican. We didn’t cite sources, since we didn’t have any on hand, but we urged the writer to check his. After a bit of back and forth, he discovered that the author of the Democratic fight song “Happy Days” was indeed a Republican, but that Yip Harburg (a noted leftist) didn’t write it. Case closed.
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Columns

On the heels of the GOP’s resounding defeat in the mid-term elections came news that only 31 percent of Americans approve of President Bush’s handling of Iraq. This will increase pressure on the new Congress to do something about Iraq.
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I’m stretching the boundaries of “East Bay” because I just like this odd tree. I first encountered it a few years back, along a dirt road east of Fairfield, where we look for mountain plovers. I spotted a number of unlikely objects on the grassy shoulder: Osage oranges, hedgeballs, Indiana brains, Maclura pomifera fruit. They were strewn along the roadside for yards, under a row of little deciduous trees.
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